Wikipedia talk:Tagging pages for problems

Welcome

This essay was inspired by a talk-page comment by User:Beland at Talk:Competition law. I look forward to your comments and improvements. THF 02:05, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. I once answered a help desk question about how many users need to dispute neutrality in an article to put up a POV tag, and I answered: one, as long as it's in good faith. 71.174.240.210 02:34, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Contradicts NPOVD

This personal essay contradicts WP:NPOVD and is an invitation for and a justification of drive-by tagging that attempts to excuse the tagger from participating constructively in page editing. Tag graffiti is a significant problem in Wikipedia. Better to follow the clear policies of NPOVD. Tagging articles is a POV issue. Tagging them and stating "This article is clearly POV" on the talk page is not sufficient, according to NPOVD which requires the productive discussion of specifics. Specifics, not as in, "I specifically said it was POV but I don't have the time to fix it" but more in line of "This sentence: 'blah' is an unsourced statement that is pushing a POV."  ∴ Therefore  talk   03:48, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The language in this article comes from WP:NPOVD. Simply driving by and saying it contradicts it is unproductive. Where is the contradiction? THF 03:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Possibly unhelpful: needs a link to the tag list

This article contains some good advice. But I came here looking for a list of tags, so that I could choose the right one. I didn't find it. In fact, there is a link at the bottom that _looks_ like it's a link to the list I want, but returns tags that the software may add, not tags that I'm supposed to consider adding.

Unfortunately, instead of tagging the article I was going to tag, I need to leave and have breakfast. Thus I fear that this article is "noise" that clouds the "signal" of what helpful editors are really looking for. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Krobin (talk • contribs) 00:15, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Krobin you are totally right - this is REAL problem.

Editors absolutely NEED a definitive, up-to-date list of tags. I'm a pretty experienced computer user - I can find my way around most things given time, Why can't I find a proper tag list - I've googled... It should be on every edit page. There is something at Special:Tags and I only know this isn't it cos I notice there is (E.G.) no { { fact } } tag in the list

A good start, but needs a lot of work

This is a good start, but needs a good pass of copyediting and clarification. Also, an essay needs to read as one, and not read as a guideline or quasi-policy. There are many good examples of well written essays, you may want to check these and get some ideas on how to improve this one. Until such time, I would avoid linking to it from policy or guidelines pages, which I have removed.

Some essays that I quite like: Wikipedia:Wikipedia is in the real world, and Wikipedia:The_role_of_policies_in_collaborative_anarchy.

Hope this helps. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:50, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm hoping to get this upgraded to policy. How does one go about doing that? Is there any role for a casual editor on Wikipedia, or does one need to be a full-time person? THF 03:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I would recommend going to the talk page for WP:NPOVD, the policy page for the use of the neutrality tag and discuss changes. All policy is open to change by all users, including the casual editors. You have the right spirit, just the wrong mechanism.  ∴ Therefore  talk   03:58, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh.... I do not think there is much of a chance for that, Ted. There are other guidelines and policies in place that deal with these issues already. (See the comment above mine). FYI, there is no formal process for defining new policies. You can start by engaging editors in related guidelines such as WP:NPOVD, and polices such as WP:NPOV and see if there is a need for such addition. As I said, I do not think is needed. Another way, would be to write a brilliant essay, and see if many editors start using it, at which point you may consider adding a {{proposed}} to the essay and take it from there. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:00, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

BTW, there are really no "full-time" editors, Ted. We are all volunteers, like you. Some invest more time than others, but that is not an issue as it pertains to policy shaping. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

New official policies are very rarely endorsed, but I do recognize some relatively new faces at Wikipedia:List of policies. WP:WHEEL, for example became endorsed after being cited in some arbcom decisions, but this was a proposed policy that was acknowledged almost universally. I can't recall any disputed policies becoming official without intervention by Jimbo.

I think Jossi is right about the similarities hurting the already-slim chances of this being made into policy; we tend to consolidate policies, such as how Wikipedia:Undeletion policy was folded into deletion. WP:ATT was a failed attempt to merge V ans OR.

For what it's worth, I think a well-reasoned essay will help some editors better understand taggers. When an editor marks up your article with ugly tags, it's very tempting to dismiss them as a non-contributing member of Wikipedia's "wonk and twiddler" brigade, but we shouldn't look at it this way. Cool Hand Luke 06:36, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd be happy to merge this into an existing policy. WP:NPOVD is too hostile to the idea of tagging, and fails to recognize that the problem with Wikipedia are the number of false negatives where articles are untagged when they should be tagged. An editor shouldn't have to babysit a page with an NPOV dispute to ensure edit-warriors don't remove the tag. THF 12:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Tagging without discussion on talk page is, in my opinion, not only useless, but harmful. It does not contribute to improve the article, it rises the emotional charge involved and, since does not point out specific problems, cast shadow of suspicion even over the informations in the article/section that are not disputed. Unfortunately, many WP articles are polluted with such tags, rendering them almost useless to whom is trying to form an unbiased opinion. I think we need specific WP policy (not a personal essay) on it, stating that a justification for tagging on talk page, pointing out specific issue is mandatory. The current WP|Tagging essay is a good baseline. M.Campos (talk) 14:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

drive-by tagging

I do acknowledge tagging is fundamental in development of high-quality articles and certainly helps display the problems explicitly to uninvolved readers. However, I do believe that we need a more clearer policy on tagging and agree with the above user on this. It is really unhelpful if the tagger doesnt spend time explain the rationale and instead insist on tagging even if the author or authors of the article are willing to work with him or her. The distinction between un-oppsed drive-by tagging and cases where authors willing to work with the tagger needs to be made. Docku:“what up?” 18:02, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Tagging contradicts WP:V

The practice of tagging in the article space should be proscribed on a basis of WP:V (see threshold for inclusion). Tagging constitutes meta-commentary about the current state of the article and therefore comprises talk content, not article content. Problems related to an article should be discussed on an article's talk page, not made to blight an article. Further, tagging should not be considered an acceptable substitute to editing the article or discussing article problems. Robert K S (talk) 18:54, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Tagging templates

User:UBX/Overtagging (UTC)

Also:

Ikip (talk) 19:10, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Such assumptions of bad faith are unlikely to lead to cooperative editing. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

thanks once again for your good faith and constructive comments.

I note that the community decided to keep (11-4) User:UBX/Overtagging, when you nominated it for deletion, Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:UBX/HatesUselessTaggers using much of the same language you use here:

"Antagonistic and in breach of WP:AGF. Accusing other editors, even unspecified ones, of vandalism isn't something we should be encouraging with userboxen".

Ikip (talk) 17:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I am still strongly of the opinion that said template is needlessly antagonistic and assumes bad faith. As one of Wikipedia's most prolific taggers I am accused of this constantly despite also being one of Wikipedia's most profilic copyeditors and doing more than most to fix the issues in these tags. I cannot recall a time when being attacked for being a "useless tagger" has led to an article being fixed faster, or better relationships between editors. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:39, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Not all prolific taggers do as much as you do to actually fix articles. While the tag shown above is antagonistic in tone, it does vent a very deep-seated frustration among several people. たろ人 (talk) 23:01, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

IMO it is best if editors find ways of venting their frustration which do not antagonise others. As I said, I've never seen an example of this kind of venting leading to cooperative editing: at its worst it encourages the formation of cliques devoted to hatred of a common enemy, examples of which are sadly commonplace on WP these days. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:25, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Tagging for future work

I just ran across this essay and find the information important and deserving of community support. I sometimes place a tag on an article I run across in the course of other work. I do not troll to place tags and in fact have taken the position that unaddressed tags or long term tags should be removed. If there are issues and nothing is done then nothing can be fixed. I feel tags are necessary but should be accompanied by comments as to what led an editor to place the tag when the template is not clear. It certainly would be unreasonable to expect an editor to place a talk page comment on reasons for a tag that there are no references on an article. It is hard to even imagine stopping in the middle of work or research to address a problem that has come to light. Placing a tag not only calls attention to a problem it places the article on my watch list and I go over this from time to time. This means to me that tags do have an importance but there is also a need for an essay or guideline, especially important for newer users, to explain a community consensus on use. Otr500 (talk) 14:53, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Promotion to guideline

What would it take to get this essay (or some variation of it) turned into a guideline? (See WP:VPP proposal here.) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:37, 3 December 2013 (UTC)